Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told journalists yesterday (13 October) that he will seek to renegotiate the country's "unfair" gas agreement with Russia when he meets his counterpart Vladimir Putin on 27 October.

...Ukraine and Russia signed a 10-year agreement on gas supplies in January 2009 after a price dispute between the two neighbours left the European Union without fuel for two weeks amid freezing temperatures.

"Russia doesn't want to revise [the gas agreement]. Why? Because it's profitable for them. Why do we want to revise it? Because we believe this is an ill-profitable agreement for us," Azarov said.

"How much time should an agreement live for, if one party sees it as profitable, and the other as highly unprofitable? Something needs to be done with this agreement. Quite obviously, it is not viable."

The Ukrainian prime minister also spoke against the planned South Stream gas pipeline project, led by Gazprom, which is designed to bypass his country.